IIRC, King Leopold hired Livingstone to go and explore the region during the 70-80s of the 19th century. Right when the Great Powers were trying to figure out who would get that immense and immenly wealthy piece of Africa.
Leopold (II that is) claimed it for himself and the Great Powers, still having not decided on the issue, agreed to give it to the monarch of a small and non-threatening monarch country. Thus was the Congo Freestate born.
Leopold II went rather out of his way to make life there a misery resulting in complaints from other nations. As a result Belgium took over the government of the colony. The Freestate of Congo was disbanded and replaced by Belgian-Congo. This was 1908 iirc.
Uganda and Rwanda only got added to Belgian-Congo after WWI (as they were german colonies) as a mandate in the same action that devided the other german colonies.
Belgian-Congo is approximately 80 times the size of Belgium, lays in the ceter of Africa, has the Congo river and its tributaries as its most important 'road' and basically is probably the richest area in the African continent resourcewise.
First resource to come out of there was natural rubber, but just before or after WW1 the copper-mines of Katanga (some of the highest grade copper-ore in the world) got connected by rail so export of the raw resource en masse was possible. For this purpose the Belgian Company 'Union Minière' (sp?) was created.
Resources in Congo are: Cobalt, copper, cadmium, petroleum, industrial and gem diamonds, gold, silver, zinc, manganese, tin, germanium, uranium, radium, bauxite, iron ore, coal
(http://www.iss.co.za/AF/profiles/DRCongo/NatRes.html)
(the mobile phone thingy isn't in there)
not included are resources from the vast rainforests (rubber was mentioned).
Most of these resources aren't important in the game of course, but a number were being exploited and provided riches for the Belgian treasury (after sufficient investment).
Also included gamewise should be a relatively large population (Leo II apparently managed to kill millions
) so depending on how colonial population is handled ingame these people would make a great 'resource' on the industrial plain (resource-gathering and factory workers), scientific (education), commercially (consuming) and military (more people to enlist)If Paradox is going all out on the resources then Congo should be a definite must-have for any colonial power.
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